SEC Commitment Comparison – 7/11/11

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News flash: National Signing Day is 29 weeks from this Wednesday.  In the old days — say five years ago — the majority of SEC schools would still have the majority of their recruiting work to do in those final seven months.  But the recruiting game has changed and you can find the proof on today’s SEC commitment lists.

Eight of the league’s 12 schools are already in double-digits with their commitments.  Five conference programs have already reached the teens.  For those schools, the majority of their work has already been done.  (Of course, those schools will still have to protect their nests.)

Below, we examine the current commitments — according to Rivals.com — that each school has wrangled in 2011.  We break things down by Rivals’ star rankings, knowing full well that those rankings will change greatly this fall.  Also, when tallying the rankings, we assign one point to those players who are currently 0-star prospects according to Rivals.  We doubt the final Rivals rankings will give anyone signing with an SEC school a grade of zero stars.

Here’s the list:

Some schools still have too few commits to get an accurate average-points-per-player grade, but we’ll go ahead and show those numbers anyway:

Observations:

* As we often point out, it’s no surprise that the schools with the deepest home state talent pools — LSU, Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Auburn — are all in double-digits with their commitment lists.  The more homegrown talent, the easier it is to earn verbal commits.

* Of the two programs that made the biggest gains on the field last season — Arkansas and South Carolina — Carolina is having the most success carrying their momentum over to the Class of 2012.  The Gamecocks currently rank behind only LSU, Florida and Alabama in total points and behind only LSU and Bama in total commitments.  Arkansas has just seven commitments to date and only one currently ranks better than a three-star prospect.  Still, the Hogs and Cocks are neck and neck in average rating per commitment at 3.15 for USC and 3.14 for UA.

* Vanderbilt continues to be the surprise of the conference and the nation.  James Franklin has been beating out traditional powers for players and he’s been doing so with nothing to sell but dreams.  Not to diminish what Franklin’s accomplished, but if VU struggles this fall as expected, opposing coaches will have an easier time poking holes in the new coach’s “big plans” pitch.  That said, we love what the ‘Dores are doing.  A competitive Vandy program would only make the SEC better and deeper — a la Northwestern in the Big Ten and Stanford in the Pac-12.  Recruiting analyst Tom Lugenbill tells The Tennessean that he’s been impressed with the type of players Franklin has landed.  “… You certainly haven’t seen the caliber of players in their commit class that we’re seeing right now.”

* The disappointments around the league would have to be Kentucky — six zero-star prospects — Mississippi State — just a 2.37 average rating per commit — and Tennessee.  Vol fans know that Derek Dooley has closed strong the last two years, but UT is digging itself a deeper hole this time around.  Two commitments?

* While on the subject of recruiting, Rivals has taken a look back at its last 10 years worth of recruiting rankings and five SEC schools have ranked in their Top 10 of recruiting for the decade running from 2002 through 2011:

#2 Georgia — The only school to finish in Rivals’ Top 10 every season
#3 Florida
#4 LSU
#8 Auburn
#9 Tennessee (tied with Michigan)

Southern Cal ranked #1 in recruiting according to Rivals.com.